Murder on Sisters' Row (13 page)

“Two years. I admired her very much, and I felt privileged that she chose me to help her with her work.”

“What work did you help her with?”

“Her rescue work. Perhaps you don’t know. Mrs. Van Orner had dedicated herself to assisting young women in escaping from a life of shame.”

“I understand she rescued prostitutes,” Frank said.

“Yes,” she admitted, obviously offended by his bluntness.

“Was that what she was doing today?”

“No, she . . . she was visiting the house she had purchased to give these unfortunate young women a safe place to live until they can support themselves with honest work.”

“Visiting the house or visiting somebody in particular?”

Miss Yingling didn’t like his questions. “She was visiting the young women who are living there now, to see how they’re adjusting to their new lives.”

“Were you with her?”

“I . . . I had gone with her from our office.”

“Your office?”

“Yes, her organization, Rahab’s Daughters, has an office in the United Charities Building. Her carriage picked us up and took us from there to the house.”

“Where is this house?”

“The location of the house is a secret. The young women who live there would be in terrible danger if—”

“Where is the house?” Frank repeated.

“Mrs. Van Orner would never allow me to—”

“Mrs. Van Orner is dead,” Frank reminded her. “She died after leaving that house. If you want me to find out who killed her, I have to talk to the people who saw her there.”

“Oh, my, I hadn’t thought of that, but Mrs. Van Orner would never—if she were alive, that is—would never allow us to reveal the location, and even if I told you the address, you couldn’t enter it anyway.”

“Why not?” he asked in surprise.

The color rose in Miss Yingling’s pale cheeks, a modest young woman forced to discuss a topic she found embarrassing. “Mr. Malloy, because of the lives the women who live in this house used to lead, Mrs. Van Orner decreed that no male would ever be allowed inside the house. She wished to avoid any hint of impropriety that might affect the ability of these women to return to respectability.”

That made sense, Frank supposed. He’d figure out what to do about visiting the house later. “So you were with her today. Can you tell me if she seemed concerned about anything? Had she had an argument with anyone or trouble of any kind?”

“Mrs. Van Orner disapproved of displays of emotion.”

“So you said. What does that mean exactly?”

“It means that if Mrs. Van Orner was upset about anything, she would never allow anyone else to suspect.”

“But you knew her very well. Maybe you could read her moods when other people couldn’t.”

Miss Yingling frowned.

“Or maybe you saw or heard someone bothering her.”

“Mrs. Van Orner was very concerned about the wellbeing of a young woman who had recently been rescued. She has a child, you see, and she will have a difficult time of it, I’m afraid.”

“Who is this woman?”

“Her name is Amy. I’m not sure what her last name is.”

The woman Sarah had helped rescue. “Did this Amy have an argument with Mrs. Van Orner?”

“Not an argument, no. Mrs. Van Orner doesn’t engage in emotional displays. This Amy is a difficult case, however. She isn’t nearly as grateful as she should be for what Mrs. Van Orner has done for her.”

“Do you know why?”

Frank had a feeling she knew perfectly well, but she said, “No, I don’t. We’ve seen this kind of thing before. Women beg us to rescue them, and when they realize how difficult their lives will be, they become angry. They often blame Mrs. Van Orner for their own troubles.”

“Is Amy angry at Mrs. Van Orner?”

“Not angry exactly. She refuses to make any plans for her future. She . . . she seems to think the father of her baby is going to take care of her, you see, and that . . . well, that isn’t very realistic.”

“Does she know who the father is?”

Miss Yingling hesitated a moment, long enough to let Frank know with a glance how inappropriate it was to ask a respectable young woman such a question. Then she said, “She claims to, but considering how she made her living . . .” She shrugged eloquently.

Frank figured if a prostitute claimed he’d fathered her baby, he’d be more than a little skeptical. Any man would. “Did Mrs. Van Orner try to make her see reason?”

“She had a private conversation with Amy today. I have no idea what happened, but afterwards, Amy was very angry and Mrs. Van Orner was very quiet.”

“Then what happened?”

“Mrs. Van Orner asked to speak with Mrs. Spratt-Williams, and the two of them went into Mrs. Van Orner’s office—the room she keeps as an office at the rescue house, not her office at the United Charities Building.”

“Who is this Mrs. Spratt-Williams?”

“She is one of the ladies who helps Mrs. Van Orner in her work. We have several ladies and gentlemen who support us.”

“Did she help rescue Amy?”

“I believe she did.”

“What did she and Mrs. Van Orner talk about?”

“You’ll have to ask Mrs. Spratt-Williams about that, I’m afraid. Mrs. Van Orner didn’t confide in me.”

“What did Mrs. Van Orner do after she met with Mrs. Spratt-Williams?”

“She spoke briefly with Lisa and—”

“Who’s Lisa?”

“Lisa Biafore. She’s the . . . I suppose you could call her the house mother at the rescue house. She manages the place and looks after the women who live there.”

“Did they have an argument?”

“Not an argument, but Lisa was upset. She doesn’t like Amy. Amy is . . . demanding.”

“Was this Lisa complaining?”

“I suppose you could call it that, although Mrs. Van Orner is . . .
was
very impatient with complainers. If you saw a problem, she expected you to take action to help resolve it.”

“Was she impatient with this Lisa?”

“No, in fact, she was very patient. She told Lisa not to worry, that Amy would be leaving soon.”

“Was she going to throw her out?” Frank asked, thinking this Amy might’ve had a good reason for doing Mrs. Van Orner in.

“I really don’t know. Perhaps the baby’s father really was going to help her,” she said with a small, unfriendly smile.

“All right,” Frank said, making careful note of the order of Mrs. Van Orner’s conversations. “What did Mrs. Van Orner do then?”

“I . . . I’m not sure. She may have spoken to someone else, but I didn’t see her after she started talking with Lisa. I went back to her office to straighten up some things. I remember being surprised because she’d left without me. I live here, you see, and she always takes me in the carriage with her when she goes home.”

This was interesting. “Why do you think she left without you?”

“I have no idea. As I said, I didn’t see her leave. I didn’t even know she’d gone. I had to make my way home on my own, and by the time I got here . . .” She stopped, her voice breaking delicately, and she lifted her fingers and pressed them to her lips, as if trying to hold back a sob.

“By the time you got here, Mrs. Van Orner was dead,” Frank supplied for her. “Who found her?”

“Herman, her driver. He’d stopped the carriage in front of the house, as he always does, and got down to open the door and help her out. He—”

“I’ll question him myself,” Frank said, not wanting to hear the story secondhand. “Who told you Mrs. Van Orner was dead?”

She hesitated, as if she was trying to remember, but nobody forgot something like that. She was hesitating because she was trying to decide whether to tell him the truth or not. “Mr. Van Orner broke the news to me.”

“I’d like to speak to him.”

“He can’t tell you anything. He hadn’t seen Mrs. Van Orner since early morning.”

“I still need to talk to him. I need to know what he wants from the police.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean does he want us to find out how his wife died?”

“Of course he does!” she said, genuinely surprised.

“Did he tell you that?”

“No, but . . . I’m sure he does.”

“Even if it causes him some embarrassment?”

Her eyes widened as understanding dawned. “Mrs. Van Orner was above reproach. You’ll find nothing embarrassing, I assure you.”

“She took in prostitutes, Miss Yingling. That alone must’ve caused him some embarrassment.” Frank could only imagine how the man’s wealthy friends would have ribbed him about it.

“Does it really matter? Don’t the police have to find out what happened to her anyway?”

“No.” He let the word hang in the air for a long moment, studying her very real surprise, and then he said, “Men like Mr. Van Orner can tell the police not to investigate and we won’t. They can tell us to arrest somebody—anybody—and solve the case. Or they can tell us to find out the truth. We do whatever they want.”

“Because they have money,” she guessed. He heard the trace of bitterness beneath the words.

Frank saw no reason to reply. He simply waited.

“I’ll speak to him,” she said at last.

He wondered how much influence Van Orner’s wife’s secretary would have with him, but she was his only hope at the moment.

“It may take a while,” she added.

“I need to see the driver, Herman. Maybe I could talk to him while I’m waiting.”

“I’ll send for him.”

“I’d like to see the carriage, too. Could you ask one of the servants to take me to the stables?”

She rose from her chair. “Wait here,” she said, and then she was gone.

Now he knew her name and her position in the household, but he still didn’t know who she really was. He had the odd feeling that he never would.

A few minutes later, a maid came to fetch him. She took him to the kitchen and out the back door and across the yard to the mews. They found Herman in his quarters, a couple of rooms above the stable. He’d hastily buttoned his livery jacket before answering the maid’s knock, but Frank could tell he’d been drinking. Even if he hadn’t been able to smell it on him, he could see the red-rimmed eyes. Or maybe he’d been crying.

The maid made a hasty escape, leaving the two men facing each other in the doorway to his rooms. “What do you want?” Herman demanded belligerently. He looked to be in his early twenties, handsome in a rough way.

“Let me in and I’ll tell you,” Frank said, keeping his voice mild and reasonable.

“Why should I?”

“So I can be sure you’re not the one who killed Mrs. Van Orner.”

The color drained from his flushed face. “I never! You can’t say that I did, neither!”

“I can say whatever I want,” Frank said quite truthfully, “but I’d like to see the right man punished for killing Mrs. Van Orner. Wouldn’t you?”

“Of course!”

“Then stop acting like a fool and let me in.”

The boy rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth and stepped aside so Frank could enter. The room was small and sparsely furnished and neat as a pin. He had a stuffed chair that someone had probably thrown out, a table with an oil lamp, some mismatched straight chairs, and a few more odds and ends. Frank pretended not to notice the whiskey bottle and half-empty glass sitting on the table beside the chair.

“What do you want to know?”

“Sit down,” Frank said, motioning to the stuffed chair. Frank took one of the straight chairs, turned it around, and straddled it, folding his hands across the top slat.

The boy sat warily.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, and don’t bother trying to lie to me because I’ve been lied to by men a lot better at it than you, and I’m never fooled.”

“I don’t have no reason to lie!”

“Good. Now tell me what happened today.”

“The whole day?” he asked with a frown.

“Let’s start with when you first saw Mrs. Van Orner.”

“I saw her right after luncheon. She’d sent word she wanted me to take her out. I took the carriage to the front door and she got in just like she always does.”

“Was she alone?”

“No, Miss Yingling was with her.”

Something about the way he said Miss Yingling’s name told Frank he didn’t like her much, but he let it pass for now. “Where did you take them?”

“To Mrs. Van Orner’s office at the United Charities Building first. She told me to wait because they’d need me later. They stayed there an hour or so, then they come down, and I took them to that house where they keep the whores. That’s what Mrs. Van Orner does, you know. She rescues whores.”

Frank nodded, sharing the boy’s wonder at such a calling. “Where is this house?”

“Over on . . . I’m not supposed to say,” he remembered.

“I’m going to need to go there to question the women who live there.”

Herman smiled slightly. “Won’t do you no good. They won’t let you in. They won’t let any men inside. They don’t want the neighbors getting the idea it’s a whorehouse, don’t you know.” Plainly, he thought this ridiculous.

“Let me worry about that. Where’s the house?”

Herman gave him the address of a neighborhood on the Lower East Side of the city.

“Miss Yingling said Mrs. Van Orner came home without her.”

“Yeah, that was funny. They’s always together, like two peas in a pod. Miss Yingling, she’s always got her nose . . . Well, you know.”

Frank did know. “Did Mrs. Van Orner say why she was leaving Miss Yingling behind?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. Wasn’t my place to look out for Miss Yingling. For all I know, she had some reason to stay behind at the house.”

“Did Mrs. Van Orner seem upset when she came out of the house?”

“What do you mean, upset?”

“I mean was she angry or unhappy or—”

“Mrs. Van Orner was a lady,” Herman said wisely. “Ladies don’t show what they really feel.”